John Chapter 8:33-42

Jesus sets us free from sin. And you know what we do at some point in our life? We look at the chains we've been set free from and we think, wow, look at those chains. Boy, those are nice chains, aren't they?

I never noticed how shiny they were. I wonder if they still fit. And what do we do? We pick them up. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, he's teaching through John chapter 8 with the message Freedom.

We also have in the studio with us D. A. Brown, one of David's associate pastors. Welcome, brother. Hey, Bob. If we've been walking with Jesus for a long time, we can forget what he saved us from.

That old life, those things we didn't want to be a part of. Today, Pastor David is going to remind us what God has done and what he's doing now. Sounds like an exciting message.

So let's jump right in as David McGee begins his teaching Freedom. So we're in John chapter 8 and picking it up with verse 33. It's kind of interesting because this chapter, if you remember, began with the Pharisees desiring to stone the adulterous woman. And what we're going to see this morning is that it ends with them wanting to stone a sinless savior.

So they just had this stoning vibe, I guess. But verse 33 says, they answered him and said, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free? See, they were offended. They were offended that Jesus said, you will be free. And they said, we're not in bondage to anybody. Now, I have to admire the statement of fierce independence that they're making here. But in reality, they were under the heavy rule of Rome.

And it's interesting. They're saying, we're not in bondage. And they were under the heavy yoke of Rome. And it reminds me of people that you talk to that don't know Jesus who've not been set free. And you say, you can be set free. And they go, man, I'm free. And yet their life is dictated by the desires of the flesh. Their life is dictated by what the world tells them to think. And far from being free, they're in bondage. But they get offended.

Now, again, I understand this statement of independence and appreciate the fierce independence of the Israeli people. And to this day, that continues to be their statement, if you will. But what had happened here for them to make this statement that they were never been in bondage to anyone. They'd forgotten. Often we remember what we should forget and we forget what we should remember. And they had forgotten something. Because even if you forget Rome, I'm not sure how you could do that. But even if you forgot you were under the heavy yoke of Rome, how could they forget Egypt, coming out of Egypt? Now, in addition to Syria and Babylon, but they had forgotten.

And you know what? We forget too. We forget that we've been set free. We forget often that we at one time were in great bondage.

And that's the first life lesson. Never forget what Jesus set you free from. Never forget what Jesus set you free from. See, we have a tendency to kind of gloss over the past and to even glorify our past. And when I share my testimony, I don't get into a lot of gory details.

And the reason is I don't want to glorify my past. I want to glorify my walk with the Lord. Because sometimes, you know, you have somebody that's sitting in there and they've not really been as much of an idiot as I've been in my life, you know. And perhaps they grew up in the church and know in the Lord and praise God, that's an awesome testimony.

And then somebody comes along and tells about how they were an ax murderer and did this and did that. And then people hear that and they go, wow, I got to go out and get me a testimony. Your testimony is that you're walking with Jesus Christ. But never forget, even if you weren't under the bondages of drugs and alcohol, you still have been set free from so much. You've been set free from loneliness.

You've been set free from not having any meaning in your life. You've been set free from the bondage of sin, from the bondage of being so preoccupied with yourself. Never forget what Jesus set you free from. Verse 34, Jesus answered them, most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Good verse.

And Paul picks up on verse 35 incidentally, and we're not going to get sidetracked there, but he picks up with this concept of a slave doesn't abide in the house forever, but a son abides in the house forever. See, there is no place that you can experience freedom like you can experience freedom when you surrender your life to the Lord. Now, I've done a lot of different things in my life. I've lived in ways that a lot of people would look and say, wow, what a life of freedom.

But you know what? What looks like a life to freedom to the world is a life of bondage. And to submit ourselves to God and walk with the Lord is just an incredible thing. Now, if you're here this morning, and let me just say this with love and with honesty, if you're here this morning and you're sitting on the fence, you're not really committed to Jesus, you're not really surrendered to Jesus, you're probably asking where this freedom is. See, because as you are on the fence, you've kind of got, you know, one foot with the Lord, one foot in the world, that leaves you in a very difficult place. See, because you're not experiencing the total freedom that Jesus wants to give you, but you're not really enjoying the sin of the world anymore. And the way to experience the freedom is to simply take this foot and put it over here and commit yourself and surrender yourself to the Lord. Again, we talked about that last week, the way that a lot of people know the truth, but not a lot of people are surrendered to the truth of the Bible.

Not a lot of people are surrendered to the truth of the Bible. And you know what's amazing? Jesus sets us free from sin. And you know what we do at some point in our life?

And I'm not sure I've ever met anybody that didn't do this. But we look at the chains we've been set free from and we think, wow, look at those chains. Boy, those are nice chains, aren't they? I never noticed how shiny they were.

Wow, they are really, those are nice chains. I wonder if they still fit. And what do we do? We pick them up and we put them on to see if they still fit.

Some never take them back off. Jesus has provided your freedom at a great price. Don't be entangled again with the things that He set you free from.

If that means you need to be extra careful in areas, be extra careful in those areas. The life lesson here is walk in the freedom that Jesus has provided. Walk in the freedom Jesus has provided. Galatians chapter 5 verse 1 tells us, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. And also in Galatians, the same chapter, and it's a great chapter if you want to read the whole thing later, but Galatians chapter 5 verse 13 and 14 says, for you brethren have been called to liberty, only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. We're to use our freedom to serve one another and to love one another.

And let me clarify something. Here it says, love your neighbor as yourself. Other places it says, love your neighbor as yourself. And I've heard some people go, well, in order to do that, you got to learn to love yourself. The Bible doesn't tell you that. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, you need to learn to love yourself more. It doesn't say that anywhere in there.

And you know what? In my life personally, my problems have not been caused by me not loving myself enough. Now maybe I'm just different.

My problems have been caused for maybe me thinking a little too highly of myself and not thinking of others enough. Let me share a graphic portrayal of this. Let me ask you a question. You get a photograph and there's several people in this photograph, but you're one of them. And somebody hands you this photograph. Who's the first person you look at in that photograph? Is it everybody else or do you look at yourself?

And then what do you do? You decide whether it's a good photograph or a bad photograph, depending on how you look. Oh, that's a bad photograph. No, the background's great and everybody's got their eyes open and stuff. And yeah, but that's a bad photograph by the negatives. Or if it's a good shot of you and everybody else, I mean, they can be having all kinds of weird facial things going on, but you're like, oh, that's a good shot. That is a good photograph. But everybody else has their eyes closed. I know, but that's just a good shot, isn't it? We do that.

We do that. This morning when you woke up, what did you think about? What's the first thing you thought about? You thought probably what you were going to eat, what you were going to wear, right? I mean, I doubt anybody in here woke up and thought, I wonder what Pastor Dave's wearing this morning. Well, maybe some of you actually did.

He never wears a suit. I'm just trying to get used to this. But you thought about what you were going to wear and what you were going to eat. And see, that's our natural inclination. Now if you're a mother, you may have thought, what are my children going to wear?

But let's examine that just a little bit further. Why did you think that? Yeah, you didn't want your kids showing up in pajamas.

Why? Because somebody would go, whose child is that? Oh, that's that lady's. Well, she didn't dress him. Yeah, I know. She's hiding.

Where's she going? See, you wanted to make sure your children were dressed. Well, why? Because it reflects back on you. Now that's just something we have to deal with. That's something we have to recognize that we have a bent towards ourselves. And we need to escape that bondage because it is bondage. Being so preoccupied with ourselves is bondage. We need to be focused on Jesus. We need to be focused on others. And that doesn't come naturally.

It comes supernaturally. And that's why I encourage people just about week in, week out, to get involved and to start serving. Why? Because it's biblical. Because it's biblical. Church was never meant to be a spectator sport. It was never meant to have a small portion of the people serving while most people didn't serve.

It never meant to be like that. And so I encourage people to serve. Why? Because the Bible encourages us to serve. And it's a great use of your freedom. Well, God knows my heart. God, I don't want to fill out a form. I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do that. Is that really the heart of a servant? We've got a saying on staff and with leadership, the way you can figure out when you really have the heart of a servant is when somebody treats you like one and how you respond. Because sometimes those situations can bring up our flesh. They can bring up those things in us that we want to focus on us because God wants to deal with those things. And I believe that the body of Christ should be, as Galatians says, serving one another. So it's a third life lesson is you are scripturally supposed to use your freedom to serve God and to serve others. So what we're doing here is just encouraging you to walk in that spiritual freedom. Scripturally supposed to use your freedom to serve God and serve others. We've got that Galatians verse. We also have 1 Peter 2.15 says, for this is the will of God that by doing good, you may put the silence, the ignorance of foolish men as free, not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king.

Now, the New Living Translation puts it a little differently. It says in 1 Peter 2.16 and 17, you are not slaves, you are free, but your freedom is not an excuse to do evil. You were free to live as God's slaves.

Show respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers and sisters, fear God, show respect for the king. Now, some of you may be going, what do you mean set free to be God's slave? See, that was why you were created to serve God, to worship God, and to have a relationship with God.

So anything that you do outside of that places you in bondage. Anything that you do inside of that as an experience of freedom for what you were designed and created to do. As Ephesians 2.10 says, you're created for good works.

You're saved by grace, created for good works. So it's obvious from these scriptures and from that scripture that you're supposed to be using your freedom. Everybody in here, if you're walking with the Lord and you're committed to the Lord, you're experiencing the freedom. But the question is, how are you using your freedom? And this is why, guys, I don't talk about serving because we need help in ministries.

That's true. But that's not my motivation. See, my calling is to teach the Bible and raise up disciples. And part of that is encouraging you to serve. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment. But I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for him. You need someone to present God's word to him. Every day we're presenting God's word to him here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob. We're excited about God's word going forth with Pastor David, and we want to pray for some people in these cities where we're broadcasting today.

Butford, Gainesville, Macon, Milledgeville, Savannah, Snellville, and Thomasville, Georgia. God, we thank you for the people listening today in these areas. We pray that they would be encouraged in your word. They would realize that you want to bless them.

Lord, you have a good plan for them. God, we pray for those who are sick in the area that you would please heal them. And Lord, we pray for the pastors in the churches, that they would be ignited in all the good plans you have for them and sharing your word throughout their city. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 37, I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen with your father. Well, it's getting ready to get very interesting here. But Jesus says here, my word has no place in you.

That's the problem here. And understand, notice something. There were people previously that we looked in this chapter that when Jesus was teaching, they were listening. They were like, yes.

Yes, this is great. We believe you. And then there's another section of people that, what are they doing? They're getting very, very offended.

Why? Because Jesus is presenting the truth. And you know what? This is usually a good indicator on whether the truth is getting presented or not. That some people are accepting it, and some people are going, they're getting offended at it. What do you mean I'm in bondage?

I've never been in bondage. I've been in church for 50 years. That is the natural response to the proclamation of the truth. People being offended, people being set free. If you don't see those two things, you probably should question whether the truth is really being proclaimed. See, because it seems that the church as a whole has started to kind of water down the truth. Well, let's not offend anybody. Let's not get anybody mad at us. But see, what happens then is you're not offending people.

You're not seeing people set free. I can't do that as a pastor. I have to proclaim the truth. And I know from the emails and phone calls and different things, I understand that some people get offended at that. And in a twisted way, that validifies, that verifies what I'm doing here is proclaiming the truth. See, if nobody ever got upset, I would really begin to wonder if I was really proclaiming the truth. Now, that doesn't mean I go out of my way to make people upset.

You've kind of probably seen that. I don't want to do that. But in the proclamation of the truth, some people get offended and some people get set free. New Living Translation here, because my word has no place in you, says, my message does not find a place in your hearts. My message does not find a place in your hearts. This morning, the message is being proclaimed to you.

The question is, is it finding a place in your heart? Are you sitting there going, you know, that's good. That's biblical truth. Are you sitting there going, that doesn't apply to me.

Are you sitting there going, oh boy, I'm really getting uncomfortable now. Let the truth find a place in your heart and surrender to that truth. Not just hearing it, but surrender to the truth. Now, I can make sure you hear the truth. And if you're here, I will make sure that you hear the truth that we look at Scripture.

But it's got to find a place in your heart. Verse 39, they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God.

Abraham did not do this. Now, I talked last week that, you know, when they were talking about where is your father, that they were insinuating something. We're going to see in just a moment. They're revolving around this father issue. And what they're, and they come out and say in just a second, what they're insinuating is that Jesus was born out of wedlock, not the son of God, but the offspring that came out of an illegitimate relationship. And they're kind of back to this father issue.

You know the sad thing here? Jesus is offering them for God to be their father. And they're rejecting that, saying, no, we want Abraham to be our father. Now, Abraham was a noble man, a strong man of faith. But given the decision of who my father could be, whether it would be Abraham or whether it could be God, what an amazing thing that God can be my father. He's willing to be my father. And Jesus is presenting them with an awesome choice and they're making the wrong one. And here this morning, many of you are being presented with an awesome choice.

Our prayer, my prayer is that you're making the right one. Verse 41, you do the deeds of your father. So they're kind of dancing around this, but you do the deeds of your father. And then they said to him, we were not born of fornication.

We have one father, God. So there it is. They're getting down to it, aren't they?

Here it is out and open. They're saying, you know what? You were born of fornication. It's interesting how they've suddenly made the transition. Now they're saying Abraham's not our father, but God's our father. Maybe they're claiming both.

I don't know. But anyway, they're accusing him again of being the offspring of an illegitimate relationship. Now, you know what's interesting? And this happens every time. Do you understand spiritual pride always gets ugly?

It always gets ugly. Unless somebody is willing to bend their pride to the truths of the word, to the truth of the gospel, religious pride gets, it just gets ugly. And now they've said that it's kind of old now. Verse 42, Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Nor have I come of myself, but he sent me.

Now, this is interesting. This is an interesting verse because he's saying, you know, if God were your father, you would love me and recognize where I came from and where I'm going. Understand, that is the litmus test for any religion or any denomination. Do they love Jesus? Do they proclaim Jesus? Do they recognize that he's the son of God and he's the Messiah?

If not, guess what? It's not of God. I don't care what their intentions are. I don't care how honorable they may be.

I don't care how many good works they do. If they don't pass this litmus test, then they're not of God. But as long as you're sincere, that I'm sorry, that's not biblical and it's not practical.

It's not logical. Let me ask you a question. If I'm wanting to go to California and I sincerely want to go to California and I leave out of here and I start going north, am I going to get to California?

No, I'm not. I'm going to wind up in New York. But I sincerely want to go to California. I'm going the wrong way.

It doesn't matter how sincere I am about going to California. I'm going in the wrong direction. And you know what? That fits, guys. Some people, they may be sincere about seeking the Lord, but they're going in the wrong direction and they won't find him in the direction they're going to.

And so it's our role, our responsibility even to say, you know what? If you're going to California, you need to go west or if you're going to God, you need to come through Jesus. Jesus at this point, it seems, is no longer interested in the wrong answers. Verse 43, why do you not understand my speech? Because you were not able to listen to my word. Again, here you can hear the word. You can not only hear it, but you can have it explained to you as I dig and I study it and I go to present it, and you can get a lot of truth. And I want to encourage you guys in studying the Bible, I want to encourage, I encourage you to study and read ahead. Now, maybe you don't have time to study, but you know where I'm going to be from week to week.

Wherever I leave off this week, I'll start up next week. And if you read it, let me promise you, if you read it ahead, you'll get a lot more out of the teaching, whether that's on Sunday morning or Thursday night, if you read the chapter ahead. And maybe you jot down questions and the Lord will answer those questions in the next teaching. And, you know, just personally as the teacher, I find that I get more out of it, you know, as a Bible teacher, I get more out of it if I read ahead.

So I'm always sure to read the passage ahead. And I just want to encourage you to do the same thing. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P. O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor DA, and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge, in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.